Tikkabik

To whom it may concern:

When I go to a restaurant, unless it's a fast food joint where everything's served to me on recycled paper or styrofoam, I implictly understand that the silverware I'm using has been in other people's mouths; that the glass my Diet Coke is in has touched other people's lips, and that the plates I'm being served on have held other people's food.

I also have a reasonable expectation that the utensils I'm using are clean. A lipstick-stained glass, for example, or a food-encrusted fork, would earn the management of the restaurant a sharp rebuke from me for being so slovenly.

Likewise, I understand that the DVDs I rent from Netflix have been viewed by other users before me. And believe me, I understand that yours is a volume business and sometimes things fall through the cracks. I'm also fully aware that thanks to the vagaries of postal delivery, you're unable to make sure each and every disc you mail arrives in good working order. I've received my share of broken or scratched-beyond-playable discs since I first established an account with you several years ago.

But when I get a disc that my player can't manage for the simple reason that it's smothered in fingerprints, well, I get a bit ornery. When the DVD smudged like that, with other people's hand oils and occasionally something hard and crusty, as if it briefly served as the filling in a peanut butter sandwich which was then left out on the counter to dry for several weeks, I get a bit repulsed. Actually, I get very repulsed.

I keep a bottle of optical disc cleaner handy for just such incidents, and more often than not I'm able to make the disc work again just by spraying it with cleaner and buffing it radially with a soft cloth for a few moments.

I really wish you, Netflix, would take the time to make sure that what you're sending out is, in fact, playable as soon as it's removed from the envelope.

Because seeing someone else's snot and slobber on a rental disc is just, well, icky.